A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing personally identifiable information from the Social Security Administration.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by a coalition of unions and retiree groups, CNBC reported Thursday (March 20).
The judge said in her ruling that DOGE had not provided any reason why it needed to access the data, and that allowing the group access to that data would create a risk of exposing Americans’ private information, according to the report.
She also ordered DOGE to delete any non-anonymized personally identifiable information gathered since Jan. 20, the report said.
The judge added that the plaintiffs in the case are “likely” to succeed in with their arguments that DOGE’s actions are arbitrary and violate privacy laws, according to the report.
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Harrison Fields told CNBC, per the report: “The president will continue to seek all legal remedies available to ensure the will of the American people goes into effect.”
It was reported in February that the acting administrator of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, resigned after a clash with DOGE over its attempt to access sensitive data.
King was replaced by Leland Dudek, a Social Security official who has supported DOGE’s anti-fraud and anti-waste efforts. Dudek will lead the agency until President Donald Trump’s nominee for the post, Frank Bisignano, is confirmed by the Senate.
On Friday (March 14), it was reported that a DOGE staffer breached Treasury data-sharing policies by transmitting a spreadsheet containing personal data to others in the Trump administration.
The information about the data exchange came up during a forensic analysis by the Treasury as part of a lawsuit brought by New York and other state attorneys general attempting to prevent DOGE from accessing sensitive payment information.
DOGE was created in January by a Trump executive order to update federal software and technology to boost efficiency and productivity within the federal government.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Feb. 18 — about a month after DOGE was created — that the government cost-cutting effort had found $50 billion in savings.
